


love me still

by asteronomic



Series: requiem for the damned [5]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Abuse, References to Cancer, References to Illness, References to attempted suicide, References to eating disorders, Terminal Illnesses, messy family things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-19 00:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16129940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asteronomic/pseuds/asteronomic
Summary: “Adult relationships are built ontrust, Kristian.” Søren pauses, pressing his lips into a thin, grim line, then slaps his file down on the table. “Which is why I’m showing you this.”Søren just wanted to be happy. He knows now that you can't always get what you want.





	love me still

**Author's Note:**

> this is the final part. _we made it._

 

Ironically, Søren feels now, for the first time in all his thirty-two years, he could really fucking do with a cigarette.  
  
He taps his foot on the side of his desk. Grits his teeth. Picks up a pen, twirls it between his fingers, drops it again. Picks up his phone — no, he can’t do it. Puts it down. Takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, breathes out through his teeth. Coughs.  
  
He needs a _beer_.  
  
He needs to make the fucking call — but he can’t. He can’t fucking do it. He doesn’t want to do it. And he _can’t_ do it. Maybe he shouldn’t do it. Maybe it would be better if actually, he didn’t do it.  
  
He picks up his phone again, but instead texts Berwald, who texts back within seconds that he’s on his way.  
  
“You’re coming with me,” Berwald says. “To the pub. You need a beer.”  
  
Søren really loves Berwald.  
  
“I need advice,” he says. They’re at the pub now. It’s the first time he’s spoken since Ber came to pick him up.  
  
“Okay. What on?”  
  
“Kristian.”  
  
Berwald raises an eyebrow. Søren continues.  
  
“I don’t know — I don’t know how to tell him. If to tell him. I should tell him, shouldn’t I? I know I should. I just — I don’t want to.”  
  
Ber doesn’t say anything.  
  
“I mean, what if I’m wrong?”  
  
Ber’s face crumples slightly, and suddenly Søren wants to cry, too. He’s not wrong. He knows he’s not.  
  
“It’s ironic, isn’t it? Me — an oncologist — it’s actually quite funny, if you think about it.”  
  
“It’s not funny,” says Berwald. Søren agrees. It’s not really very funny. “You — you should tell Kristian.”  
  
There’s a _but_ there. Søren has no idea why.  
  
“But?”  
  
“But nothing.”  
  
“That’s it, then?”  
  
Ber looks pained. “I’m sorry, Søren.”  
  
There’s something there. “What is it?”  
  
“I — I can’t say.”  
  
“You can’t say? As in, you don’t want to?”  
  
“As in, I can’t. Drink your beer.”  
  
Søren drinks his beer. It doesn’t help much. “You can’t say, because?”  
  
“Because, it would be — a breach of confidentiality, and I wouldn’t be doing my job.” Berwald sighs and adjusts his glasses. “But to be perfectly honest, I can’t believe he hasn’t told you himself.”  
  
Søren doesn’t have a clue what Berwald is on about.  
  
“Told me _what_?”  
  


* * *

  
  
Søren feels numb. He feels as though an earthquake has just shaken London to the ground, as though a tsunami has crashed through the wreckage. 

  
“He didn’t tell me anything,” he says quietly.  
  
Ber shakes his head. “He was wrong not to. I’m having trouble forgiving him for it. Hell, even Kirkland is angry at him, from what I’ve seen.”  
  
“He didn’t say a thing.”  
  
“He should’ve.”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“I’m—” What is he? What is Søren? He was empty, then shocked, then hurt, and now— “I’m _angry_.”  
  
“I would be, too.”  
  
Søren stands up, almost knocking his glass off the table. “I have to go.”  
  
Berwald looks panicked, suddenly. “Søren, _wait_ —”  
  
“I have to talk to him. Sorry, Ber, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it back into work today.”  
  
“That doesn’t matter, but Søren — don’t do anything stupid—”  
  
“Don’t do anything stupid? Don’t worry, Ber, I think Kristian has me outdone on that one.”  
  
Berwald doesn’t seem to have a reply to that. Søren’s head is, strangely enough, the clearest it’s been in a few days. As he strides out of the pub, hands clenched in his pockets, he knows exactly what he’s doing and why. He knows, for the first time since his conversation with Kirkland, _exactly_ how he feels — and he’s _angry_. He’s fucking _pissed_. He feels betrayed, cheated, lied to — he is positively seething.  
  
He slams open the front door and Kristian, sat at the kitchen table, jumps so violently that his book clatters to the floor.  
  
“Jesus fucking Christ, Søren, are you _trying_ to break the door down?”  
  
Søren spits his words out through gritted teeth. “Were you ever going to tell me?”  
  
Kristian looks blank for a second, and then his eyes widen, guilt etched into every line in his face. “I can explain, I—”  
  
“You _what_ , Kristian? How can you _possibly_ explain this away?”  
  
“I _wanted_ to tell you, I was going to, I just didn’t know how, and god, I didn’t want to — _think_ about it—”  
  
Søren shakes his head. “That’s not fucking good enough. I’m your fiancé, Kristian, but it took your employer to tell me what you should’ve told me yourself nearly a year ago.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Are you?”  
  
Tears stream down Kristian’s face, and his voice shakes as he speaks. “I am, I should’ve told you myself, I’m so sorry—”  
  
“Yeah, you should have. Adult relationships are built on _trust_ , Kristian.” Søren pauses, pressing his lips into a thin, grim line, then slaps his file down on the table. “Which is why I’m showing you this.”  
  
Kristian fumbles with the file, visibly shaky, nearly dropping his reading glasses. He flicks through the papers, lips parted in silent shock.  
  
“ _Shit_ , Søren.”  
  
Some of Søren’s anger melts away at Kristian’s pained whisper, and he falls into a chair and closes his eyes. “I double, triple-checked.”  
  
“Fucking hell.”  
  
“I didn’t want to tell you, either. But fuck, Kristian, it’s been nearly a _year_. When were you going to tell me? Were you going to just let us get married and live happily ever after until one day you just — just—”  
  
“ _No_ ,” breathes Kristian. “No, I wouldn’t — I should’ve — but Søren, I can’t talk about it, I don’t know how.”  
  
“Yeah, I know, you’re — more _private_ than I am. I get that. But sometimes I feel like I don’t _know_ you.”  
  
Kristian looks up from the file at that. “What do you mean?”  
  
“You know my family, you’ve met my parents, we stayed with my grandparents in Odense, you made a gingerbread house with my mother — but all I know about your family is that they live in Norway and you don’t talk much. That’s it. I have no fucking clue why you raised Emil, why you moved to England, why both you and Emil jump every time someone raises their voice — or why everything Kirkland does for you seems to be laced with guilt, or why Ber keeps asking me in hushed tones about how Emil’s doing. I know none of this, Kristian. And it feels pretty fucking important.”  
  
Kristian doesn’t say anything for a long time. “I’m scared, Søren.”  
  
Fear seems to be going round, at the moment. “Why?”  
  
“I didn’t want to tell you — any of this — because I was scared you — you wouldn’t want me anymore. I was scared you’d want someone who wasn’t so — _broken_.”  
  
Søren frowns. “Is that how you see yourself?”  
  
Kristian shrugs, which is enough of an answer. Søren is torn, equal parts annoyance and sympathy.  
  
“Look, I can see where you’re coming from, but you must know that that’s not how I see you. How I’d ever see you. And if you can’t see that, then — then I’m not sure I know that you trust me enough.”  
  
“I trust you, Søren, of course I do.”  
  
“Do you, though?”  
  
Kristian avoids Søren’s eye. “There are — plenty of things I haven’t told you. Arthur is just beating himself up about pushing me too far in uni, once, but my family — that’s a whole other can of worms.”  
  
Søren is bitterly unsurprised by Kristian’s refusal to elaborate. “Right. And Emil, recently?”  
  
Kristian continues to avoid eye contact. “He — had some _issues_. I didn’t tell you, because I felt he should be the one to.”  
  
“That’s fair, but I might’ve been able to support him, too. How am I meant to be part of this family if you don’t _involve_ me?”  
  
Kristian shrugs again, and Søren shakes his head. He’s heard enough. He understands why Kristian keeps everything so close to his chest, why he would have difficulty talking through his problems, rather than shutting them up, but—  
  
“I don’t know that I can be with someone who won’t talk to me when they’re having problems,” he says. Kristian looks at him, eyes filled with panic and fear and regret and _guilt_. “I love you, Kristian, and I don’t love you any less because of it, and _obviously_ I don’t see you as _broken_ , but — I need to know we can talk things through. I need you to _talk to me_. And if you can’t, I — I can’t — I don’t think—”  
  
Søren can’t continue down that line of thought. Instead, he stands up, picks up his file, shrugs his coat back on, and walks out of the door. He can feel Kristian’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t glance back.  
  
Rain hammers down as he shuffles, sluggish, about the streets of West London. He’s shaking, a mix of warm and cold water running down his face, and by the time he reaches the doorstep he’s looking for, he’s coughing wetly and pathetically.  
  
“Could I — stay here? For a few nights? Please?” he asks the woman who answers the door.  
  
“Oh, _Søren_ ,” says Riikka Oxenstierna. “Come in, I’ll get Ber.”  
  


* * *

  
  
He wakes to weak sunlight and the wafting scent of toast and omelette. It’s rich, fresh, delicious, and it turns his stomach. He rolls over and buries his head in the pillow again.  
  
“ _Eat_ ,” commands Ber, putting a tray of food on his bedside table. “I won’t have you starving sadly.”  
  
Søren curls himself into a ball, pulling the duvet tight around him.  
  
“Riikka would be very disappointed to hear you don’t like her cooking.”  
  
Berwald has won, and unfairly. Søren honestly feels that upsetting Riikka is similar to kicking a young puppy. Begrudgingly, he emerges from his blankets and forces himself to eat.  
  
“How do you feel?”  
  
Søren clears his throat. “Not great,” he says, voice cracking and raspy. “Physically or emotionally.”  
  
“You’re taking the day off, I hope.”  
  
“It doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice.”  
  
“You don’t.”  
  
Ber’s gruff, authoritative way of caring feels as comforting as hot soup in cold weather. It’s not the grand house he’s been waking up in every morning for almost a year; it’s not so lavishly decorated, not filled with extravagant works of art and shelves on shelves of books and papers and records, and it doesn’t quite feel like home, but it’s somehow — _easier_ than Kensington had felt last night. Ber sits at the end of his bed, waiting, offering him space in the silence, quietly showing his support.  
  
“We talked,” Søren finally says as he pushes his finished breakfast away. “I — confronted him. Asked him why he didn’t tell me.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“He said he was scared.”  
  
“That’s understandable. Doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t tell you, though.”  
  
“He said he didn’t know how. And I decided I — I need him to work out how.”  
  
Berwald nods. “Sounds fair. Do you think he will?”  
  
Søren sighs, long and weary. “God, I have no idea.” He fiddles with the edge of the duvet, suddenly restless. “Is Riikka working today?”  
  
“No. Do you want me to ask her to get you anything?”  
  
“No, no. I was just thinking I’d help her with — well, whatever she needs to do.”  
  
“I’m sure she’d appreciate that. Don’t do too much, though.”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
Ber manages to find a small smile, a contrast to his usual neutral expression, and reaches over to squeeze Søren’s hand. “It’ll all be okay. Eventually. It always is.”  
  
Søren wishes he could find that kind of optimism.  
  
Riikka is out on the terrace with her sketchbook and coffee at hand when Søren drags himself out of bed. He joins her, cradling a mug of tea. Lost in her art, Riikka doesn’t so much as look up until he stifles a cough.  
  
“Sorry, do you mind if I watch?” he asks, and she smiles.  
  
“Of course not. You’re still worrying about Kristian, aren’t you?”  
  
Søren shrugs. “When I saw you out here, I saw Emil, to be honest with you.”  
  
“Well, I’m flattered that you think I look eighteen.”  
  
They both chuckle. Søren sips his tea with a sigh. “I just don’t know what to do.”  
  
“Give it some time,” says Riikka. “You’ve already done the right thing. The pair of you have far too much on your minds, and you just need some time to mull everything over.” She grins. “And in the meantime, I know _exactly_ what will help.”  
  
“Oh, no.”  
  
“Oh, _yes_ ,” she says, a twinkle in her eye. “I know all about your wild side from Ber, but you’ve done a good job of covering it up. Tonight, however, that all changes.”  
  
“I am _not_ going to go out when I’m meant to be at work.”  
  
Riikka nods sagely. “Mmm, very responsible. However, I don’t care. You need to relax, and clearly doing that quietly isn’t working out for you. We’ll raid Ber’s wardrobe for something nice to wear, you’ll take a long, hot bath, I’ll make some food and then you will go to a nice little cocktail bar a couple of streets away from here. I know the guy who owns it, he’s very sweet and I can trust him not to let you do anything stupid or get too drunk.”  
  
It is true, admittedly, that the slow morning is doing nothing for Søren’s racing thoughts. Drinking his problems away, just for a night, sounds like a terrible, wonderful, blissful mistake. “I don’t think this sounds like a good idea,” he says, despite himself. “Would Berwald approve?”  
  
She waves a hand. “Ber doesn’t approve of anything, except for Mozart and long silences. I know you’re not well, but I also know that you’re not stupid and you know your own limits. Believe me, this is what you need.”  
  
Søren reckons he was fifteen the last time someone actually told him that getting drunk would solve all his problems. Riikka is right, though — he knows when to stop, and he needs a distraction. Stewing in his anxieties would do him no good. He’s _tempted_.  
  
“Fine,” he says eventually. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll go out. But — one condition.” He pauses for dramatic, teasing effect. “Tomorrow morning, we listen to Mozart in silence all morning.”  
  
“You have a deal,” Riikka says, grinning. “Now, let’s get you dressed up.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“Enough,” Riikka says as Søren gloomily runs his fingers over the loose fabric on his biceps. “There is nothing wrong with being a little more petite than Ber, he’s built like a tank. Stop sulking, we’re going shopping.”  
  
When Søren had promised Ber he’d take the day off, he did _not_ have a shopping trip in mind. Riikka’s reassurance does little for his restless thoughts: over and over, his mind supplies images of how his body is going to look a few months down the line, a wrecked skeleton drowning in his own clothes. Call him shallow and self-obsessed, but he _likes_ the way he looks, and _fragile_ isn’t really his desired image. He and Ber were never that dissimilar, back in university — but Ber did always prefer to build muscle, he seems to remember, while he himself goes for the toned, _lean_ look. He _knows_ that the oversized shirt shouldn’t be having this effect on him, but. _But_.  
  
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s — one of those days.”  
  
Riikka raises an eyebrow. “I’ll say. Come on, we’ll have lunch out.”  
  
With a sigh, Søren obediently shrugs off the shirt and pulls his own crumpled clothes back on. Riikka leads him out of the house and down the road and to the Tube and before he really realises it, they’re in John Lewis and she’s holding clothes up against him with a thoughtful expression.

“Is Barbour a bit too upper-middle-class?”  
  
He looks at her. “I have literally no idea what you just asked me.”  
  
She rolls her eyes and hands him a pile of clothes. “Just try these on. Meet you in the café in fifteen.”  
  
As she wanders off, Søren stares blankly after her until a shop assistant asks him if he’s okay, which is probably his cue to snap out of it. How _pathetic_ , he thinks, staring at his reflection. The loose, loud sweater that Riikka has picked out for him just isn’t _him_ , and neither are the close-cut jeans, but all he can think is — well, why not? Why _shouldn’t_ this be him? What is ‘him’, anyway? Who, really, is Søren Andersen?  
  
(Is it still a mid-life crisis, he wonders, if you’re barely into your thirties yet staring death in the face?)  
  
He carefully folds the outfit and takes it to the till, hardly glancing at the three-figure price tag.  
  
“So?” Riikka asks as he rejoins her.  
  
Søren smiles and lets his shoulders relax. “Fuck it, I’ve had enough of plain shirts and chinos.”  
  
She grins. “I should hope so, too. It’s all you lot ever wear, and that’s fine for Ber, because that _is_ Ber. But you, Søren, I believe there’s more to you than white shirts and shiny loafers.”  
  
Well, Søren won’t argue with that. “God, Riikka, when did I become such an adult? The most adventurous I get is ordering from a different Chinese restaurant on a Friday night.”  
  
Riikka laughs. “If Ber’s school stories are anything to go by, you’ve got the guts to go a bit wilder than that.”  
  
“Everything just got so mundane as soon as I graduated. I mean,” Søren drags a hand through his hair, coughing out a chuckle, “I’m fucking _glad_ I’m not a student anymore. I really don’t miss the endless debts and exams, and god, being a junior doctor was absolute _shite_. But it all just felt a bit — freer, I guess, and I’ll be fucked if I die now with my regular coffee order being a flat white.”  
  
Rikka shakes her head. “I know I know nothing about this, but I’m pretty sure Ber and Kirkland both agree you’ve got a fighting chance. I mean, facing up to things is good, of course, but — don’t just lose hope, Søren. That’s as stupid as ordering another damn flat white.”  
  
Søren’s laugh takes on a bitter edge. “Every fucking day, someone is given — I give someone — a _fighting chance_ and it turns out to be empty words. And on that note, I’m going to buy myself a caramel cortado. With _whole milk_!”  
  
He does so, and it’s possibly the most revolting coffee he’s ever tasted. But he finishes it with a smile, and on their way out, he buys another fluffy, patterned jumper.  
  
  


* * *

  
Søren Andersen, he decides, is a _cocktails_ kind of man.  
  
The bar Riikka sent him to is nice, all exposed brick and fairy lights, and he’s halfway through his third mojito when he realises that the outfit he’s wearing is just a shinier, newer version of the outfit every other damn guy in there is wearing. It’s a sea of Emils — so much for forgetting his problems when he’s surrounded by the younger brother of his main one.  
  
He’s been seeing Emil in everything, lately. From a psychoanalytical perspective — one he’s found himself taking far too frequently, recently — it’s _baffling_. Why Emil? Kristian is on his mind, sure. Questions of should he or shouldn’t he, what does he need and what does he want, trust, life, and love — but god damn it, where in god’s name does _Emil_ fit into it?  
  
He takes another long sip of mojito.  
  
“Conflict — that’s a new one on you. But there’s a lot that’s new on you, it seems.”  
  
Søren shakes his head. He knows that voice, damn it. But it’s got to be, what fourteen years? The speaker isn’t one he was prepared to _ever_ see again — and yet when he looks up — “ _Clémentine_?”  
  
“Søren K. Andersen,” says Clémentine Cellario. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”  
  
“I could ask you the same question,” he says. “You haven’t changed a bit.”  
  
The same flowing blonde curls frame the same soft, sweet face with the same brilliant blue eyes and Søren is nineteen again, curled up like a content cat on the Monte Carlo sands, stealing sea-salt kisses from those rosy lips.  
  
“Believe it or not, work managed to get a bit messy back home,” she says with a smile. “I moved to London a month ago. Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you around here, I hear you’ve done quite well for yourself.”  
  
“You hear,” Søren says. “You mean you read my letters over the years, but never responded?”  
  
Her face falls. “I — I didn’t know what to say back. I mean, you were doing so much, while I just sat behind my laptop all day, trying to pull something together—”  
  
“It’s okay,” he says, smiling. “Don’t worry about it. I know what you’re like with socialising.”  
  
“ _Bad_ ,” she giggles, and it occurs to Søren that perhaps he isn’t the only one a few drinks in.  
  
“Let’s find somewhere a bit quieter,” he says, and leads her away from the bar and to a cosy-seeming corner, where she insists on him telling her everything — everything, she says with wide eyes, she wants to know every detail — that has happened since they parted all those years ago. He obliges, starting from Karolinska, meeting the third-year Ber through the football team, working hard and partying hard and working harder still, finally graduating, working in Sweden, then moving to London with Ber and meeting Riikka and Ber’s wedding and then Kristian and Emil and—  
  
“And then what?” Clémentine asks innocently, but Søren bites his tongue.  
  
“And now we’re — taking a break, for a bit,” he says lightly, and she raises her eyebrows.  
  
“That doesn’t sound good. Why?”  
  
Søren had almost become lost in his stories, in his life, and had almost — almost — forgotten what he came to forget.  
  
“You tell me about your life, first,” he says, not keen to drag himself back down to earth.  
  
Clémentine shrugs. “I studied, I graduated, I got a job, lost that, got another and quit that and so I came here.” She pauses. “And sometime during all that, I just about managed to get over you.”  
  
Guilt stabs at Søren’s stomach. “I’m sorry, C,” he says. “I didn’t _want_ to leave you, believe me.”  
  
“It’s okay,” she says, with the sweet smile he fell in love with before. “It was only a summer fling, just — a really good one.”  
  
Søren laughs. “I guess that’s one way of putting it. What are your plans, now you’re in London?”  
  
“I don’t have any — don’t give me that look, I only got here last week. I’m renting a flat with a complete stranger, which isn’t ideal, but it’s cheap. And I’ve got a few job interviews lined up. My plan was sort of just — escape the monotonous loop I managed to find myself in and actually write, like I always wanted to.”  
  
Just about everyone seems to know how to live their lives better than Søren does, apparently. “That’s a good plan, though. You’ve got to be happy, more than anything.”  
  
Clémentine gives him a knowing look. “But what about you, though?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Are you happy?  
  
Søren doesn’t know how to even begin to answer that.  
  
“I’m — C, I don’t really think—”  
  
She shakes her head. “Sorry, that was — a bit out of the blue, I suppose. I just — god, S, moving here, meeting so many new people, trying to make a life for myself — it’s had me thinking about, well, everything. Including — us.”  
  
His stomach twists itself into an anxious knot, and he bites his lip.  
  
“I’m — yeah, I’m happy. I mean, I’ve got Kristian, and Emil, and Ber, and — well, I’m where I always wanted to be, I guess.”  
  
It’s not a lie. The nineteen-year-old Søren serving brightly-coloured drinks in tall glasses to rich tourists, the teenager who lay in the sun next to Clementine, telling her his hopes and his dreams — _that_ Søren would be proud of him. How he’s matured. How he’s settled down. He swallows the bitter taste the words leave in his mouth with another sip of mojito.  
  
“Listen, C, this has been fun—”  
  
Clémentine smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “But you’ve got to go and get back to your life. It’s okay, Søren. I get it. Call me if you’re ever alone at a bar again.”  
  
Søren pushes down his guilt, and tries to will away the liquor-induced haziness in his head. He stuffs his phone and his wallet into the pockets of his tight new jeans and stumbles out of the bar and into the taxi.  


 

* * *

  
  
No one’s heard. The news hasn’t managed to slip out, to his complete disbelief: admittedly, it was mostly Søren himself conducting his own tests, with a hand from Berwald. But he’s surprised that Kirkland didn’t spread anything — Søren wonders if actually, the man’s reputation is a tad unfair — and evidently, Kristian has held his tongue. It’s a reassuring mark of professionalism, he supposes.  
  
In any case, the latest news in the lounge is Jones’ resignation. She’s one of the best doctors he has working under him, so it’s a damn shame, but aside from that—  
  
“You’re just — moving to Senegal?” he blurts out.  
  
Jones nods. “They’ve got — barely anything out there. It’s just so unfair. Here we are, with all our resources and all our money and all our knowledge, while over there — I can do so much good, you know? It’s a death sentence in Senegal, but I’m going to do my best to change that.”  
  
Personally, Søren feels that they do quite a lot of ‘good’ here in London. “But why now?”  
  
Jones shrugs. “Why not now? I had the opportunity, so I took it.”  
  
There’s nothing Søren can say to that. It’s fair enough — why shouldn’t she do what she wants to with her life? There’s no real reason why she should carry on with a job she doesn’t find fulfilling. No one is indispensable in a job, after all.  
  
Clémentine felt the same way, he realises. Just like Jones, Clémentine threw away her sensible, stable job in finance to do something she actually wanted to do—  
  
But Jones and Clémentine are completely different people, he tells himself. Jones has the stability of medicine — she’ll always have a job, if she wants one. She’s looking to help others, while Clémentine — _Clémentine_ —  
  
Clémentine does what she wants. She doesn’t care — a fact Søren remembers well, sending heartfelt after heartfelt letter. It’s not planned, it’s not sensible, it’s not mature. Without the haze of hard liquor, C’s appearance feels less like a sign and more like a messy mistake. It’s a waste of time, and Søren doesn’t have time to waste.  
  
So why does Søren feel like she’s won in life, not him?  
  


* * *

  
Life seems to pass around Søren after that. He goes, he does, he interacts, but there seems to be a sheet of glass between himself and the rest of the world. Monday evening, he helps Riikka make pastries for her coworkers. Tuesday, he wins fifty quid in a game of cards with Ber. Wednesday, Kirkland drops his coffee on Søren’s new bag and then tells him that Kristian has developed a habit of staring forlornly at his engagement ring. Thursday, he goes for lunch with Clémentine.  
  
“So, then I realised that I just wasn’t happy with where I was in life, and now I’m just rethinking everything, really.” She takes a sip of her sparkling water and smiles brilliantly at him. “It’s like you said the other day, you’ve just got to be happy.”  
  
He did say that, didn’t he? It feels foreign to him now. “Mmm,” he says, pushing his avocado toast around his plate.  
  
“But what’s going on with you, S?” she asks, leaning in. “You were so vague last time. There must be more to it.”  
  
He shrugs. “Well, Kristian has a lot on his plate, and I think — we’re just trying to find a way to both deal with it.”  
  
Clémentine rolls her eyes. “Kristian this, Kristian that — I asked about _you_. You’re hiding something again, like you were in Monte Carlo, and I want to know what it is. What are you feeling?”  
  
Honestly? Scared shitless. Since Monte Carlo, he’d always felt as if time stretched out before him, as if the world was his oyster, as if he could do anything at all — he’s _Søren Andersen_. When he proposed to Kristian, he’d imagined a future with him. He’d imagined goals, plans, family things — maybe even children.  
  
But neither of them have that future, probably, and now — well, he’s not even sure he has Kristian.  
  
“Kristian is everything to me,” he says, despite himself. “I just want my fiancée back.”  
  
He almost misses the flicker of disappointment in Clémentine’s eyes.  
  
  


* * *

 

 

(Søren makes bouillabaisse for Ber and Riikka that night. They enjoy it immensely, chatting between mouthfuls about work and life and the _future_ and the topic of children comes up — Søren knows they’re _trying_ — and then Riikka sees his wistful look and changes the topic. It’s not until they’ve cleared their plates that it seems to click for Ber — “ _Clémentine_ — it was Clémentine that you ran into. Søren, should you really — I mean have you even _told_ Kristian?”)

* * *

  
  
“—and I haven’t told my family, but I don’t think — they don’t need to know, I don’t think. This is my business. I don’t need them to — get involved.”  
  
“I think that might be a mistake,” Søren says gently. “You’re going to see some physical changes to your body throughout the treatment, and I doubt your family will miss them. Yes, it’s true, they will worry if you tell them — but equally, if they don’t know, they’ll worry more.”  
  
Kristian shakes his head, expression carefully blank as Søren reattaches his IV. “I don’t want them to worry at all. What they don’t know can’t hurt them.”  
  
“They just want to support you. Don’t you think that maybe, not telling them something so important might hurt them?”  
  
He shrugs. “I don’t know, but I don’t really want to find out, either. There’s a what, sixty percent chance I’ll survive this? If I do, I’ll tell them, and we’ll celebrate it, but if I don’t — I’d rather die in peace. I don’t want them watching while I waste away.”  
  
“Does that seem fair on them?” Søren asks.  
  
“Fair? Of course it’s not fair, what part of this is fair? With all due respect, doctor, they are never going to understand how fuckin’ painful leukaemia is. I’m the one suffering, shouldn’t I get to choose how I deal with that?”  
  
The illusion breaks, and Søren is no longer looking at Kristian Thomassen, but his thirty-something patient.  
  
And the earth shifts suddenly, and as if through new eyes Søren sees his own situation in a completely different light: yes, Kristian is being selfish, but the man is _dying_. There’s no right or wrong thing to do, because everything is wrong. Søren has been so busy dealing with the fact that his own life is falling apart to realise that Kristian’s life has been in tatters since the start of it all. Trust, selflessness, even communication — what the fuck does all of that _mean_ , if you’re looking death in the face?  
  
“You’re right,” he says absently. “Yes, you’re quite right. Would you excuse me?”  
  
He doesn’t stop once, even to shed his white coat, as he walks out of the room and out of the corridor and down the stairs and out of the wing and out of the hospital and up the road, down to the underground, onto the platform, the train, the escalator, crossing the road, key into the door, letting himself in—  
  
Kristian sits at the kitchen table, nose in a book. On the surface, nothing has changed in the week that has passed: the same slight frown, the same too-big reading glasses, the same freckly nose. Only the book is different — this time, it’s Romeo and Juliet.  
  
But everything is different. A week ago, Søren was fuming — betrayed, angry, scared — but now, today, as he looks at Kristian and Kristian looks back at him, eyebrows raised in surprise—  
  
He melts into Søren’s kiss, as if he’d been waiting an eternity. God, it _feels_ like an eternity since Søren has kissed these lips. He can’t get enough, kisses him again, and again, gripping Kristian’s hair, kissing his neck, along his jawline, his collarbones, a hand sliding up underneath his shirt, unbuttoning it. His coat comes off, thrown thoughtlessly to the ground, followed by his tie, his shirt, then Kristian’s shirt.  
  
Kisses escalate quickly to little nips, to bites that will leave marks trailing across the chest and then down, tongues tracing hipbones, teeth tugging at underwear. Kristian’s book is pushed off the table, probably along with some other stuff, but Søren isn’t exactly paying attention. Kristian pins him down on the table, taking control, and Søren — well, what choice does Søren have but to happily, blissfully oblige?  
  


* * *

  
“So, we should probably talk,” Kristian says later, as they lie in bed, a tangle of sheets and soft skin.  
  
“We should also probably clean the kitchen table,” Søren replies.  
  
“And the sofa,” Kristian adds. “Seriously, though. I’ve thought a lot about what you said a week ago.”  
  
Søren sighs. He’s glad, so glad that Kristian is breaching the subject, but — he wouldn’t mind hiding from his problems a little longer. The logical part of his brain nudges some sensibility into him, and he squeezes Kristian’s hand.  
  
“Me too,” he says. “I’m sorry I was so — _accusing_. I didn’t really think about your feelings, which was — a mistake. When I thought about it a bit more, I realised that it all feels a bit different when you know you could die soon.”  
  
“It does,” Kristian agrees. “But god, I didn’t mean to hurt you, Søren. I shouldn’t have kept it from you. It wasn’t fair, and I’m just — so sorry. I’ve always kept everything to myself, so it’s hard adjusting, I suppose. But I swear, I’m going to be more open now. I promise. I trust you, completely, like I’ve never trusted anyone else — I’m so, _so_ fucking sorry it’s taken me this long.”  
  
Kristian sighs, and Søren squeezes his hand. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m sorry, too, I was so inconsiderate. When you’re ready to tell me about your parents, and Emil, and everything — I’m so, completely here for you — but only when you’re ready.”  
  
“I think I’m ready to tell you,” Kristian says, and squeezes Søren’s hand back. He closes his eyes, and rests his head on the headboard. “I’m ready.”  
  


* * *

  
_To his colleagues, Frederik Thomassen always seemed a stern, yet caring man. His employees always spoke highly of the attention he paid them, making sure everyone was paid well and treated fairly, and not a single worker in the company spent a Christmas starving. Yes, the hours were long, and the work trying at times, but Thomassen, as a businessman, was a kind man.  
  
To Kristian, his father always bore a frightening resemblance to the scheming witches in fairytales.  
  
His mother wasn’t really any better, either. While his father would take and take and take from him, his mother would smother. For his sixth birthday, his father bought him an antique model ship and told him to recite his Latin verbs to a dinner party, and his mother dressed him in a little Saint Laurent boating ensemble, fussed over the sugar content in the birthday cake the au-pair made him and then sent him to bed. It was the first time he realised that his parents’ only concerns were material, and he was no more than another trophy for the cabinet. He cried himself to sleep. His mother sacked the au-pair the next day.  
  
For the next four years, he lived up to his parents’ expectations and made sure not to repeat the silly mistake of getting close to the au-pair (he found they lasted longer when they didn’t know his favourite colour) and it was all smooth sailing. His father continued to showcase him at each work event, and his mother continued to shout at the cooks and the maids and the cleaners when they took pity and served him a slice of freedom — be that a square of chocolate, a picture-book or half an hour of real fresh air, away from the house.  
  
On his tenth birthday, however, things changed.  
  
He didn’t wake up to the cook grinning at him, or the maid holding out a slice of cake, or the cleaner tickling him with the duster. There was no fussing, no fretting, no Beethoven over brunch.  
  
Instead, he woke to complete silence. He felt, immediately, that something was off. He lay in bed, perfectly still, as one plays dead for a bear.  
  
And then a pitiful, plaintive wailing began, followed by a bellowing shout.  
  
His mother cried and cried for hours, as his father continued to shout, and all the while Kristian stayed in his room, unable to move. He gripped the corners of his sheets, knuckles turning white, and closed his eyes. It will pass, he told himself. He hadn’t done anything wrong. They couldn’t possibly start shouting at him.  
  
Around lunchtime, the shouts and wails began to die down, and Kristian pushed his blankets away to shakily wrap his dressing-gown around himself and peek out of the door. The cook and the maid stood either side of the door to his parents’ room, ears pressed to the walls.  
  
He coughed, very quietly, and the maid turned to look at him with a pale face.  
_  
_“Mister Kristian,” she whispered. “Oh, Mister Kristian, it is not good — your mother, she—“  
  
She broke off, shaking her head. The cook grimaced.  
  
“She is with child,” she finished for the maid. “But it is not your father’s child.”  
  
The smothering stopped after that. Instead, his mother became as distant as his father, and despite years of home-schooling, Kristian was sent to boarding school in Sweden — an entire year ahead of typical enrolment. Eight months after his birthday, the new Thomassen was born. The staff were sworn to secrecy — Kristian suspected that a large amount of both money and threats were exchanged — and no one was any the wiser. His mother stopped painting and sewing and singing and dancing and simply sat at the dining table, agreeing with every other word his father said.  
  
Emil was no Thomassen. The ashy hair and bright, curious eyes were so far removed from his father’s iciness that Kristian couldn’t help but adore him. But while his father continued to show Kristian off at every opportunity, his new brother was ignored. Sitting in the cold classroom surrounded by strangers, all his thoughts were on Emil, and while his roommates sniggered over car magazines and grimy pictures of women, he couldn’t ever get his brother off his mind. He hoped to God that his mother had just hired an au pair to raise him quietly, but he worried that his father was using Emil as punishment — raising him as a weapon, treating him badly to teach their mother a lesson. He knew which was more likely.  
  
At Christmas, he came home to tears. Emil seemed to have been shoved into the mercifully careful arms of the cook and maid, while their mother had withdrawn further into herself — and their father spent all his time leering at a young brunette who always seemed to have a glass of champagne in her hand. Politics, he realised, watching his mother swallow glass after glass of gin on Christmas Eve, didn’t just mean running a country._

_The girl seemed nice enough, all smiles and polite laughter and hanging off his father’s arm, and so did the next one — and the next one, and the one after that. Their mother stopped paying any attention to Emil whatsoever, and the letters from home became fewer and fewer. Every Sunday, he would call the cook on the mobile he bought her for Christmas, nervously asking for news of his brother as he tried to ignore the snickers from his roommates. Daddy’s boy, they called him, looking at his fresh, new shirts and antique violin. If he wasn’t so miserable, he might have laughed at the irony._

_Boarding school, he said thoughtfully, was probably what shaped his personality the most, for better or for worse. When people treated you like an outsider, it was easy to slip into a habit of making yourself one — of withdrawing yourself, of clutching your emotions and your passions and your everything to your chest. The boys at school assumed that he was too haughty to have fun, and over the years, it became easier to simply accept their stereotype. Fun and games weren’t for Kristian Thomassen. Friends had never been an option. His priorities were hard work, personal success, academic dominance, Emil._

_Some time into his third year, in the middle of biology, Kristian’s phone rang. His chest tightened in fear — it was always him who called the cook, never the other way round—_

_“They are sending him away.”_

_They were doing_ what _? Emil was_ three _— Kristian felt that being thrown out of the house aged ten was bad enough, but three?_

_“Mister Kristian, you have to stop them, they are sending him to Iceland, to stay with your mother’s family until he is old enough for boarding school — you must_ stop _them.”_

_But Kristian was completely powerless. There was absolutely_ nothing _he could do — his parents listened to his music, his poetry recitals, his French verbs, but never his opinions. His mother’s family weren’t terrible people, admittedly — equally careless as their own parents, equally distant, but no worse — but_ Iceland _? The distance between Stockholm and Oslo felt like a universe already. His baby brother was being ripped away from him, and just because his father had run out of interns to use to make his point._

_He came home the weekend before the au-pair took him away. Sitting in front of the living-room fire with Emil in his lap, talking softly to him and stroking his hair, Kristian found himself breaking down into quiet, pathetic tears for the first time since he himself was sent away. By the time Emil was on the plane, the emotions had crashed through and out of him, leaving him completely numb._

_He_ had _to get Emil away from their family. He had ten years before Emil could go to Sigtunaskolen, but knowing their parents, he’d be dragged back to Oslo before that to be used as a weapon in some other way — he had to get Emil out before he was torn to pieces in the endless tug-of-war, as Kristian had been hollowed out into an empty, brittle trophy._

 

 

* * *

“Emil stayed with our mother’s family in Iceland until he was six, when our aunt announced she was pregnant, and Emil was sent home,” Kristian says matter-of-factly, as Søren struggles to process everything he’s been told. “I’d only just moved to Cambridge, so I couldn’t really do much, and then I got sick, but when the cook called me one day to tell me that my mother had smashed my father’s collection of vintage whiskey and my father had thrown her laptop out of the window, I knew I had to get him out sooner rather than later. I got access to my trust fund when I was eighteen, so I bought a flat for us to live in, near a good primary school. My parents pretended to put up a fight, but they didn’t really care about Emil, so they let go pretty quickly.”

“That’s fucking _insane_ ,” Søren says. 

Kristian shrugs. “I did what I had to do.”

“What about Emil now? I know he and Leon broke up for a bit, but you never told me what actually happened with that — was that related to your parents, too?”

Kristian sighs, and pulls the bedsheets tighter around himself. “I think — everything is related to our parents. He — Søren, he wasn’t _eating_ properly. He’s doing so much better now, but I think — I think it was losing Leon, and all his friends, and being away from London, but I think also — he has a lot of insecurities, buried very deeply, that all come from our parents.”

“He wasn’t eating?” Visions of Emil at Christmas, wineful memories of Emil’s full glass of wine and unfinished plate of food and leaner stature and deeper sighs come back to him. _Fuck_. He should have fucking _seen_ that. “Is he — I mean, he’s getting better now, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t — _too_ bad. I mean, it was bad, it was fucking _terrifying_.” Right now, Kristian doesn’t look like a gifted, capable doctor. There are shadows under his eyes and faint lines on his forehead and more than anything else, he looks like an anxious young parent. “It could’ve been worse, he’s got it under control now. His uni friends are keeping an eye on him. I just — I don’t think there’s anything in the world I want more than just — Emil being _happy_.”

“He _is_ , Kristian,” Søren says immediately. “I mean, obviously he has _issues_ , but he is so fucking happy when he’s with you — he knows he’s so loved by you, and he loves you so much. It would be a fucking _miracle_ if he didn’t have a bit of a rocky time, mental health wise.”

“That’s true,” Kristian says. “Thank you, Søren, I’m so — I’m so _sorry_ I didn’t tell you any of this before.”

All of a sudden, Ber’s words come back to him. He should tell Kristian about Monte Carlo, it’s only fair, but — he can’t, the _shame_ — but all of Kristian’s truths are on the table—

He squeezes Kristian’s hand. “It’s okay. I’m just — so glad to know now. And I — have some stuff to tell you, too.”

Kristian raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you were the secrets type.”

Yeah, he deserved that. “I’d pushed it to the back of my mind until recently. I met someone I hadn’t seen in years, and — well. With that and — everything that’s happened, it sort of — came back.”

“Well, go on — are you okay? Apart from the obvious, I mean—”

“Yeah,” Søren says, taking a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m fine — apart from the obvious. It’s not that kind of thing. I — ran into Clémentine.”

Kristian sits up in bed, narrowing his eyes. “Your ex-girlfriend? From your gap year in Monte Carlo? Søren, please don’t tell me you—”

“No! Christ, _no_ , God, no.” It’s a fair assumption, but even thinking about it physically hurts. “I was mad at you, sure, but I could _never_ cheat on you.”

“Then _what_?”

“Ugh, it’s so _stupid_ , but I owe it to you — so, you know I took a gap year, went to Monaco, got into Karolinska, and the rest is history. But I didn’t — I never planned on going to Karolinska. I actually — I wanted to go to Cambridge, too.”

Kristian raises his eyebrows again. “You didn’t get in? I’m surprised.”

“So was I. So surprised, in fact, that I didn’t take it very well.” If Søren closes his eyes, he could almost see the letter in front of him, feel the shame and the _hopelessness_ of that day. “I had to reapply everywhere, and I was just so _humiliated_ — I mean, back then, I felt as if I could do anything, as if I had the world at my fingertips, and then the future I’d planned for myself just fell away. And I — didn’t cope with that very well. My mother found me the morning after with a bottle of vodka and a handful of sleeping pills.”

Kristian’s confusion switches to pure horror. “Søren, _no_ , oh my _god_ — I’m so sorry. Thank god she found you — I don’t even want to _think_ what nearly happened.”

Søren laughs bitterly. “It wasn’t my finest moment. So that’s why I went to Monte Carlo, threw myself into a shitty part-time job to take my mind off everything, and fell half in love with Clémentine, which perhaps wasn’t the best idea. She — she’s _fine_ , she’s very sweet, but — surrounded by people who don’t really care about anything but money and sex. I had a great summer with her, drowning my problems in that.” 

“Mmm, sounds _healthy_.” Kristian’s tone is drier than Søren’s mouth as he tells the story.

“It was very _easy_ , but I didn’t _address_ anything until I got to university and made friends with Ber, who is — well, the exact opposite, as you know. All addressing your emotions and dealing with them to be a healthier, better person. And stuff.”

“Just what you needed, but not what you wanted.”  
  
“Exactly. Seeing her again was actually kind of good, in a way, because I can tell you now that money and sex hasn’t made for a well-rounded adult.” Søren coughs, an ironic chuckle hidden somewhere in it. “I started thinking about how my life might’ve been if I hadn’t gone to Karolinska, hadn’t had Ber to sort me out, and it almost seemed nice — but I’d be a fucking mess, like C is. I might feel more liberated, but — god, this last fucking week, I’ve been so lost in my own head, and it’s been awful. I’d’ve been like that permanently. And it wouldn’t have changed that fact that I’m ill.”

Kristian sighs. “What a _mess_. But you definitely shouldn’t be ashamed of it, I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t got into Cambridge, either. It’s hard, I think, when you’re young and just trying to find your way in life. Everything is so black and white.”

“Black and white is so overrated,” Søren muses. “Nothing is certain anymore, and I, for one, fully accept my shade of grey.”

“Oh?”

Søren shakes off the heaviness of the conversation and checks the time on his phone. “The night is young. No time like the present.”

Kristian shrugs, keeping his face perfectly straight. “Time isn’t on our side, we should really be making the most of the evening.”

Both of them are late to work the next day, and neither Kirkland nor Ber is amused by their crumpled clothes and ruffled hair.

 

* * *

 

After that, Søren feels — incredibly _light_. He’s been trudging through life for months, weighed down by issue after issue, and it’s not as if they’re _gone_ now, but — they’re just _easier_. He moves back with Kristian, and Emil comes home for the summer, and they all sit down and talk everything through. Kristian tells his colleagues about his situation — although apparently, somehow, it ended up that  Héderváry was the only one in the dark — and Søren does the same and suddenly, they have the quiet support of the entire hospital on their side. The good thing about doctors, Søren muses, is that they know how to act around sick people. Kristian laughs when he says aloud how _bloody glad_ he is that he didn’t follow his father into real estate. 

He speaks with Clémentine, too, and pretends it doesn’t sting just a little bit that she disappears off the radar again afterwards. 

They decide to get married in the winter, and spend most of the early summer bickering about whether they want classical music (Kristian’s choice) or a swing band (Søren’s obviously superior choice) to play. Emil despairs, and goes interrailing with his university friends for a month. 

Søren starts himself on a course of chemotherapy in late July. It’s hell; he stops working for a month, throws up more than he eats, loses handfuls upon handfuls of his beloved thick hair. Kristian quits work in August, too, and decides to work on a research paper for as long as Søren needs his help. 

The wedding is the light at the end of the tunnel. Except, Søren thinks one particularly painful morning, it’s a flickering, faltering light. 

Towards the end of the month, Kristian begins to look worse for wear, and Søren is certain that they’ve had it — both of them, snuffed. It’s hard, so hard, and _god_ , how he’d love to just _give up_ — 

But on the first of September, Riikka announces that she is with child. A week after that, Kristian manages to finish his paper, and a week after that, Søren manages to get out of bed for the first time in weeks. 

“ _Morale_ ,” Berwald says wisely. “You’ve got to keep your morale up, Søren.”

(Very easy to speak in hindsight, Søren thinks privately.)

September is no month of miracles, by any means. Søren is by no means _cured_ , and Kristian is in no way _recovered_ , but Riikka’s child seems to have given them new strength for now. They don’t have forever, but — maybe tomorrow is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> fuck me I'm so sorry it's taken me this long to write this, and how rubbish it is. Any comments would make me very, very happy. (tumblr - scandinavienne)


End file.
